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WARNING: Listening to this album may result in excessive headbanging, air guitaring, air drumming or a combination of those. Injuries may also result from banging your head against the wall a little too hard.

Ahem... OK. :) Raven are one of those bands that have successfully outlived the NWOBHM era, the band still being active after over 20 years (in fact, the band's origins date as far back as 1974 so we're almost talking 30 years here.) Even those who are not familiar with their music will probably know who you're talking about when you mention the drummer with his hockey helmet, a very distinctive visual trait of this band if there is one! "All For One" is probably one of their best-known albums. It's difficult to really identify a weak track on this album, in fact the weakest material is in the bonus tracks included on this 2000 re-issue of the album - yet that material is not weak enough to adversely affect the listening experience of this otherwise excellent album.

"All For One" contains all the key ingredients of the successful albums of its time: Catchy yet aggressive enough, lots of memorable solos, a relatively simple music (at least by today's standards) that gets straight to the point and is just raw enough to please metalheads as well as having melodies that are catchy enough to grab the attention of fans of softer forms of rock 'n' roll.

A lot of timeless numbers here, including but not limited to the opener "Take Control", the title track "All For One" which is sure to be a crowd pleaser at live shows, "Break The Chain" and the strangely-named "Athletic Rock" are two other tunes that are guaranteed to please for years to come. However, there's no need to really go into individual songs, as this album is excellent from start to finish - here officially ending with "Athletic Rock" but followed by an excellent cover of "Born To Be Wild" that fits the album very well, then two other bonus tracks that don't fit so well, but are still a good listen.

"All For One" is a part of metal history that should be in every metalhead's collection, simple as that (unless you're one of those who think metal started in 1990, that is - you're a desperate case. ;))

Additional Information

- Originally released in 1983. This re-issue contains three bonus tracks.